Poll Error in get Pointer when launching Kando in Tablet Mode

[oknozor]

Short Summary

When using Kando on a framework 12 laptop (hybrid tablet PC) in tablet mode, I encounter a "Poll Error in get Pointer" error when attempting to launch a kando menu. It works perfectly in normal mode, but fails to start in tablet mode. This issue seems to be related to the way Kando handles input devices on linux/wayland.

Expected Behavior:
Kando should launch and function correctly in tablet mode, just as it does in normal mode.

Actual Behavior:
Kando fails to launch in tablet mode with the error "Poll Error in get Pointer".

Steps to Reproduce the Issue

You need an hybrid tablet PC.

1. Launch Kando in normal (PC) mode. It start without any issues.
2. Switch the tablet PC to tablet mode (touchscreen enabled, keyboard/touchpad disabled).
3. Attempt to launch Kando. The application should fail with the error "Poll Error in get Pointer".

Kando Version

v2.1.2

Installation Method

Via a package manger

Desktop Environment

Other (specify below)

Environment Version

Niri 25.11 (but is think this goes for any wayland compositor)

Additional Information

No response

[Schneegans]

Hi there! This is indeed most likely a Niri-specific issue. @make-42, do you have an idea?

[make-42]

This is the wlroots backend passing a error it gets from the wayland compositor when it polls for the mouse position, I would imagine it would get such an error if there is no mouse pointer to read from because you're in tablet mode, I'll see if I can get tablet support to work

[make-42]

i wrote what should be a working solution but i don't have a touchscreen to test it

[make-42]

I'm going to try testing it on my laptop but there should be a working fix in the main branch of the fork I created for a PR (if I can read the wayland spec correctly):
https://github.com/make-42/kando

[make-42]

yup it worked on the first try on my laptop, I'll open a PR

[make-42]

keep in mind though that the touch screen only gives position events when you're actually touching it, so unless you're touching your touch screen when the menu appears, it should just timeout and spawn the menu at the default position

[make-42]

I'm still going to test if I am able to reproduce your error prior to this code change before pushing anything

[make-42]

I'm unable to get it to output that error in tablet mode, although it might still fix it (since it does check for pointer capability before attaching the pointer event handler now), either way before the fix it wouldn't get any data from the touch screen so it's at least an improvement since now it gets data.

[make-42]

Adding a longer timeout if a touchscreen is detected might improve kando's usability, making it user adjustable is also a possibility, it should not be too hard to do since the place that handles the timeout has access to capabilities and can make an easy switch between timeout lengths with just a single if statement, just lmk!

[Schneegans]

Awesome, thanks for looking into this! @oknozor, you can download a test build of the the fix from @make-42 from the bottom of this page. You will want to download the build-ubuntu-24.04 file, it contains Kando in package formats. Does this fix the problem?

[oknozor]

Video_2026-01-04_12-55-32.mp4

Hi, thanks for the quick response, I have tested with your build and it works.

That said the menu appear only after "Pointer get timed out", which makes it pretty unusable.

As you can see in the screen capture, I perform the gesture to open the menu around 00:09 and the menu show up at 00:15.